Provisioning

What Is Provisioning?

Provisioning, by definition, is the process of setting up the application environment to make the environment available and ready for use. This may include setting up the infrastructure, configuration, users accounts, and so on. Provisioning in Sentinel EMS allows the product manager to configure products for provisioning, so that when a product is activated, a provisioning request is automatically initiated for that product and sent to the provisioning system via API calls. The provisioning request includes all the required information about the line item, such as entitlement and product details, information about the target, which may be an end user, a device, or an application provisioned for the customer, as well as any other required information. When the request is successfully handled by the provisioning system, the target is provisioned to use the product.

Sentinel EMS provisioning offers the following advantages:

>Centralized request management: With Sentinel EMS provisioning, you can easily access and manage your provisioning requests and keep track of their statuses.

>Consistent provisioning: You can manage provisioning requests with similar configuration requirements in a standard manner, in compliance with your organization's policy.

>Eliminates the requirement of using custom configuration and APIs: Provisioning collates all the required information for the targeted users, such as activation and entitlement data, and product and order details, which eliminates the need of writing custom APIs and configurations to fetch it from Sentinel EMS.

How to Use Sentinel EMS for Provisioning?

NOTE    Provisioning is not relevant for lease-based entitlements and is therefore not supported for lease-based entitlements.

The provisioning steps in Sentinel EMS are as follows.

1.Add a product and configure for provisioning.

2.Add and associate a provisioning method and plan with the product.

3.Create an entitlement and activate the product. Upon activation, a provisioning request is automatically initiated.

4.View and manage provisioning requests.

5.View and manage methods, plans, and their product associations.

Adding a Product for Provisioning

Create a product. For details, see Creating a Product.

When defining product attributes:

>Select Product Type as Default or Variants.

NOTE   Provisioning is not supported for the Versionless product type.

>Set Provisioning to Yes.

>To activate a product automatically when committing an entitlement, set Activate automatically to Yes. For details, see Automatic Activation for Provisioning-Enabled Products.

Adding and Associating a Provisioning Method and Plan to a Product

After you create the provisioning-enabled product, you must associate that product with a method and a plan.

To associate a method and a plan:

1.From the navigation pane, select Catalog > Products.

2.In the Actions column for the provisioning product, click More Actions > Manage Provisioning.

•In the Method and Plan boxes, start typing and select an existing method and plan from the list of suggestions.

•Click to add a method or plan. For details, see Provisioning Associations

Creating an Entitlement and Activating the Provisioning-Enabled Product

1.Create an entitlement that includes the provisioning-enabled product. For details, see Creating Entitlements.

2.When the entitlement for the product is created, activate that product. For details, see Activate a Product.

When the product is activated, a provisioning request is automatically initiated from Sentinel EMS.

NOTE   Creation and sending of provisioning requests is an asynchronous process that works on an activation event. It may take several seconds before the request is handled and then displayed on the Requests page.

You can view and manage your requests on the Provisioning Requests page.

Automatic Activation for Provisioning-Enabled Products

Sentinel EMS enables automatic activation for provisioning-enabled products. When you create an entitlement, you can configure the product to activate automatically without having to perform the additional step of manual activation.

If you enable Activate Automatically, ensure the following:

>The product does not require any user input for activation.

>The Services license model is the default (or only) license model in all associated features.